AI’s Transformation of Work — June to July 2026 Update
A new installment on the ways AI is transforming work.
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These weekly updates are a semi-automated curation service. This update covers the last six weeks and adds new entries to my ongoing log of AI’s transformation of work, the good and the bad.
Before getting to the new entries below, you may want to check out The Hostile Reader Taxonomy, a post I published recently about how we can be really bad readers, even hostile to authors sometimes. If after reading these new updates about AI’s transformation of work, you are curious about how AI is or isn’t going to transform everything about us, check out my AI risk framework. Ok, on to the new updates.
Monday.com cut about 20% of its workforce on July 23, more than 600 people, in a restructuring its SEC filing frames as fitting the company to the AI era. Cofounder Eran Zinman said the point was not to replace people with AI. The day before, Uber cut 10% of its customer service jobs, a second round in two months, even as it keeps recruiting for more than 500 other roles. Oracle’s annual report disclosed about 21,000 jobs shed in the year to May 2026, 13% of its workforce, with severance and restructuring costs of $1.8 billion against $374 million a year earlier.
Three institutions went looking for that disruption in the aggregate data and did not find it. The Federal Reserve published a framework on July 17 for tracking AI’s economic impact and concluded the economy is in a buildout phase, with investment and adoption climbing while productivity and labor effects stay limited. Yale’s Budget Lab, updated with May CPS data, still finds occupational mix and unemployment among AI-exposed workers inside pre-AI ranges. Ramp’s study of 21,000 firms found high-intensity adopters grew headcount 10% over two years, with entry-level hiring up 12%. Arvind Narayanan traced the gap to reliability, which across three frontier labs’ models improved only 5 to 10 percentage points over 24 months while raw capability scores surged. Goldman Sachs economist Elsie Peng put a timeline on it, arguing the payoff may not arrive economy-wide until the 2030s, along the roughly 20-year J-curve the ICT revolution followed. She still estimates a net loss of about 16,000 US jobs a month.
In 2025 microbiologist José Penadés described to DeepMind’s Co-Scientist a problem his team had worked on for nearly a decade, how a superbug family spreads antibiotic resistance. The correct hypothesis came back within two days, ranked first among five. The City of Raleigh now supports 4,400 employees and 500,000 residents with four IT help desk staff, cutting IT service costs 66% and saving more than 1,300 staff hours a year. Exponential View published the first bottom-up count of the generative AI economy, putting it at $110 billion of revenue over twelve months and an annualized run rate above $175 billion. That is roughly enough to cover infrastructure depreciation.
A survey of 24,000 adults across 30 countries found Americans uniquely pessimistic about AI, with no correlation to media diet or political affiliation. The pattern tracked labor market structure instead. Health insurance tied to employment and thin unemployment benefits make displacement financially catastrophic in the United States in a way it is not in Europe. Erik Brynjolfsson makes a related argument about employer choice, that gains come from organizational redesign rather than adoption alone, and that which workers thrive depends on how the technology gets deployed. Boris Cherny describes engineering, product, and design melting into five role archetypes on the Claude Code team, while Chinese firms distill departing workers’ decision-making into digital employees that keep working after the humans resign.
Jul 23, 2026 · Monday.com
Monday.com is laying off about 20% of its workforce, over 600 employees, in a restructuring the company ties to its AI-driven growth strategy. Cofounder Eran Zinman said the cuts were not meant to replace people with AI, but the SEC filing frames the plan as fitting the company to the new AI era. Shares remain down 74% year over year.
Jul 22, 2026 · Uber
Uber cut 10% of jobs within its customer service operations, telling staff the move is meant to simplify operations and embrace AI. It is the second round of reductions in two months, following a 23% cut to its people division in June, even as the company keeps recruiting for more than 500 other roles.
Jul 17, 2026 · Federal Reserve
The Fed published a framework of public indicators for tracking AI’s economic impact: capabilities and costs, firm investment and adoption, and productivity and labor data. Its assessment as of 2026 is a buildout phase rather than broad-based displacement. Investment and adoption keep climbing, but aggregate productivity gains and labor market effects remain limited and concentrated in a few sectors.
Jul 14, 2026 · Elsie Peng (Goldman Sachs)
Goldman Sachs economist Elsie Peng argues AI productivity gains may not show up economy-wide until the 2030s, following the same roughly 20-year J-curve the ICT revolution took. Only 2% of S&P 500 companies mentioned AI productivity on Q1 2026 earnings calls, and she estimates AI is already contributing to a net loss of about 16,000 US jobs per month.
Jul 13, 2026 · Arvind Narayanan
Princeton’s Arvind Narayanan argued AI functions as a normal technology requiring decades of organizational adaptation, not sudden mass job loss. His research found reliability across three frontier AI companies’ models improved only 5 to 10 percentage points over 24 months even as raw capability scores surged, a gap he says explains why coding agents haven’t cut software engineering headcount.
Jul 1, 2026 · Google DeepMind
Google DeepMind researchers describe how AI agents are starting to reshape science. Microbiologist José Penadés described a problem his team spent nearly a decade working on, how a superbug family spreads antibiotic resistance, to DeepMind’s Co-Scientist agent, which returned the correct hypothesis, ranked first among five, within two days.
Jul 1, 2026 · City of Raleigh
The City of Raleigh uses ServiceNow’s AI platform and virtual agents to support 4,400 employees and 500,000 residents with only four IT help desk staff. The automation cut IT service costs by 66%, hit 98% ticket routing accuracy, and saved more than 1,300 staff hours a year, per ServiceNow’s case study.
Jun 29, 2026 · Ramp
A Ramp Economics Lab study of 21,000 U.S. firms found high-intensity AI adopters grew headcount 10% over two years, with entry-level hiring up 12%. Gains are concentrated among larger, venture-backed firms; low-intensity adopters saw no statistically significant change.
Jun 29, 2026 · (Multiple)
Workers report a new pattern of AI-obsessed managers mandating chatbot use for all decisions including hiring and firing, while dismissing human expertise. Employees describe constant pivoting, unrealistic directives, and reduced morale as AI enthusiasm outpaces organizational judgment.
Jun 28, 2026 · Boris Cherny
Boris Cherny, reflecting on the Claude Code team at Anthropic, proposes five emerging archetypes: Prototyper, Builder, Sweeper, Grower, and Maintainer. Traditional job functions like engineering, design, and product are dissolving into skill-based roles defined by product maturity stage.
Jun 25, 2026 · Exponential View
The generative AI economy generated $110 billion in revenue over 12 months, with an annualized run rate exceeding $175 billion. This first bottom-up, deduplicated measure of consumer and enterprise AI spending finds revenues nearly cover infrastructure depreciation costs. Token price declines appear to drive elastic demand increases, suggesting sustained growth even as costs compress.
Jun 25, 2026 · (Multiple)
A survey of 24,000 adults across 30 countries finds Americans uniquely pessimistic about AI, with no correlation to media consumption or political affiliation. The pattern tracks labor market structure instead: US workers face cascading financial risk from job loss because health insurance is employer-linked and unemployment benefits are weak compared to European peers, making AI-driven displacement genuinely catastrophic in ways it is not elsewhere.
Jun 25, 2026 · Erik Brynjolfsson
Stanford labor economist Erik Brynjolfsson argues AI productivity gains require organizational redesign, not just adoption. Firms that retrain workers and restructure processes around AI capture gains; those that simply layer AI onto existing workflows do not. Which workers thrive depends on how employers choose to deploy the technology.
Jun 22, 2026 · Oracle
Oracle’s annual report revealed about 21,000 jobs shed in the year to May 2026, 13% of its workforce, as the company reshapes its business around AI. Severance and restructuring costs hit $1.8 billion, up from $374 million a year earlier, and the filing warns AI deployment across operations may keep shrinking headcount.
Jun 19, 2026 · Caixin
Chinese companies are building AI ‘digital employees’ by extracting workers’ decision-making logic, communication styles, and personality traits through model distillation, often without consent or compensation. Workers discover their voices and expertise still active after they resign. Tech-savvy employees are developing counter-tools, while legal frameworks on personality rights and data dividends lag behind the practice.
Jun 15, 2026 · Yale Budget Lab
The Budget Lab’s ongoing labor-market tracker, updated with May 2026 CPS data, still finds no clear sign of AI-driven disruption: occupational mix, unemployment among AI-exposed workers, and a synthetic differences-in-differences analysis all remain within historical, pre-AI ranges. Yale’s economists plan to keep updating the tracker as new data arrive.
May 21, 2026 · Uber
Uber built cryptographic identity and delegation-chain tracking for its production-grade AI agent platform, which spans thousands of microservices. The architecture uses short-lived JWT tokens and a centralized Security Token Service to verify who authorized each agent action, maintaining full audit trails for compliance and incident response as autonomous agents take real-world actions.
May 6, 2026 · Yale Budget Lab
A Yale Budget Lab analysis using synthetic differences-in-differences finds no statistically significant AI effect on employment or wages in AI-exposed occupations through Q1 2026. The researchers caution that exposed and unexposed occupations differ substantially in education, gender, and business-cycle sensitivity, complicating simple before-after comparisons of AI’s labor impact.
Jan 7, 2026 · Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick documents Claude Code building a complete startup website with minimal human input in over an hour, marking a major leap in AI capability. The system chains autonomous reasoning with tools, context compaction, and subagents to sustain complex multi-step projects independently.
Read the full log of 192 entries:
